


Glad and Sorry Seasons

by spider_fingers



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, as in just before he was sent over to Dunwall, post-first game, teen!Daud, timey wimey Void bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-15 00:02:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spider_fingers/pseuds/spider_fingers
Summary: The boy gave each of them a glance, his fingers tight and fumbling on the mask. He seemed caught between hunching out of sight and straightening to make his meager body match the iron of his gaze. A Whaler pushed him forward, and he refused to stumble when he looked Corvo in the eye.“I’m Daud,” he said, his jaw tight.Corvo stared.





	1. Chapter 1

Emily’s impatient tugging on his sleeve barely registered. [“Corvo, what is it? Listen to me.” ] The unbelievable, impossible -- terrifying? -- thing he was seeing had expanded through his awareness like a poison gas.

His hand shot out, almost without prompting, to grip the Guard Captain’s arm.

“Defensive circle, now,” he rasped, keeping his eyes on that impossible sight and already reaching for his sword. “Take Em-- Take the Empress to the safe room. Keep to impending attack protocol until you’ve reached it.”

Emily did not cry out or reach for him as her Royal Guard hustled her away. The first ten times this had happened, she had -- she’d cried, even, reflexively, her nose running and her face filthy with it, though she hadn’t fought the guards that inevitably picked her up and whisked her away. By now she knew to keep her head low, to follow her Guard back into the palace. The only thing betraying her fear and confusion was the uncertain glance she threw her father before disappearing behind the encircling shields.

Corvo walled off that image from the dizzy thrill of adrenaline sharpening his senses. Later, he’d have the time to feel the weight of his daughter’s weariness and fear -- but for now there were more pressing matters to attend to.

Such as what a Whaler was doing perched on a roof just beyond the outer walls of Dunwall Tower.

On the move now, scaling lengths of pipe and brick wall, Corvo reached the uneven rooftops in a bare minute; long enough for the Whaler to notice he’d been made and escape, maybe little enough for Corvo to catch up with how well he knew this part of Dunwall -- but the Whaler was still there, crouched and facing him a rooftop away, the lifeless lenses of his mask reflecting opaque and white in the midday sun. Wariness made Corvo halt his advance. Was this a trick? An ambush? Separating him from Emily to leave her vulnerable? He resisted the need to look behind him and forged on, instinct urging him forward, his sword unfolding threateningly in his hand.

The Whaler vanished in a flicker of shadow.

Corvo froze for a second, eyes darting between the near-empty street below and the skyline stretching into the distance, searching--

“ _Lord Protector._ ”

Not a shout, but the distorted hiss of a breathing mask was enough to zero in his focus: on his right, a roof lower than eye level. Standing on the edge of it like he wasn’t an affront to decency. Corvo, according barely a glance around to making sure there were no witnesses, surged forward with rage-fueled carelessness.

The Whaler always waited just long enough for Corvo to notice him before vanishing away again; even if he hadn’t called out to him that first time, this alone would have made it obvious Corvo was supposed to follow. He kept thinking back to Emily’s pale, fearful face, kept blank with habit and effort, out of sight behind the barrier of shields. He’d been considering how to teach her to defend herself, whether he should wait for her to grow some more (were the Royal Guard enough? Had he placed enough sentries, enough spying eyes in his own ranks, to catch a looming betrayal?); for an instant he regretted not having begun two years ago already, when they’d returned to the tall, empty halls of the Tower, and irritably shook it off. Emily’s Guard would protect her, and thirteen was no age for any child to have to wield a sword.

He clenched his fist and the Void pulled him through dark breathlessness back to noon and rooftops, a bare few feet behind the racing Whaler, his focus sharp as an arrowhead.

They’d circled around the eastern corner of the Tower, and were now closing in on the branch of the Wrenhaven separating it and Coldridge Prison. The Whaler hadn’t stopped to look back for the last couple of leaps; he was either certain of Corvo following, or afraid of him catching up. Either one suited Corvo just fine. He was sure enough of where the Whaler meant to lead him. The memory was dim with tired hunger and panic, but he remembered the cold, close space well enough, dark, far from prying eyes after months of uncomfortable scrutiny.

Down below, the walk was bordered on one side by a sturdy stone railing, the drop beyond steep but slightly slanted, diving into the murk of the Wrenhaven. As the Whaler reappeared on top of the tower at the railing’s end and started his descent to the water at the bottom, Corvo Blinked into the trees lining the walk and waited for his moment.

It took barely a minute. The Whaler’s feet touched the water and he vanished again, alighting on the stones by the sewer entrance, where he turned -- and hesitated, finding no one and thinking Corvo lost on the way, which gave Corvo plenty of time to Blink into being overhead and crush the Whaler in his fall.

As soon as he had a grip on the stunned assassin, he twisted one of the man’s arms hard behind his back, ducked into the open maintenance door of the sewer (no one was waiting in the shadows there, he’d made sure before coming down) and flattened the Whaler against the nearest wall. The tip of his sword dug into the man’s back.

“Explain, _now_ , why you dared show your face to me,” he growled, pulling a little tighter on the Whaler’s arm to hear his breath hitch in pain, “after the shitheap you and your master made of my life and this city.”

“Lord Protector, listen to me--”

His sword left the Whaler’s back to press against his throat, cutting off the words before the rest could leave his mouth.

“I have nothing against killing you and going to your crew for answers. I may have spared you lot once, but my patience has limits.” The Whaler’s wheezing breath went staunchly ignored. It was unusually controlled, considering Corvo was no lightweight and had probably cracked a number of his ribs in the fall. “So answer me.”

“Corvo, please, it’s-- _gkh_ \--”

The sound of his name in an assassin’s mouth-- disgusting, unbearable, he’d tightened his hold on instinct, sword cutting into the man’s neck--

“-- _the Outsider_ \--”

Corvo stepped back, and the lack of support left the Whaler crumpled on his knees in the muck, awkwardly cradling his arm and pressing a sleeve against the dark trickle at his throat. He coughed, weakly, and swallowed to clear the lingering impression of metal and pressure. When he turned to Corvo, however, the Lord Protector was no longer looking at him -- but at the end of the sewer tunnel, where two other Whalers had appeared, their blades drawn.

“We were further down,” one of them spoke up before Corvo could question them -- before he could properly feel threatened, and threaten them in return. They kept their stances wary. “Thomas was supposed to explain the situation,” a glance at the Whaler on his knees, still struggling to get upright, “but I guess you jumped him before he could.”

An uncomfortable quiet settled, the downed Whaler catching his breath, Corvo and the newcomers facing off across the tunnel.

“The situation,” Corvo prompted, and glanced to the Whaler he’d chased across the rooftops -- Thomas -- now leaning heavily against the wall. That one kept his hands well clear of the blade at his belt. “You mentioned the Outsider.”

“It’s-- complicated,” Thomas said, hoarse. “Our master--”

“He hasn’t left Dunwall,” Corvo cut in, cold realization seizing his insides. “Your powers-- He’s still _here_ \--” The anger rose in him like a sudden tide, and the Whaler only just managed to stop it washing away all restraint from Corvo’s mind, spreading hands wide and shaking his head.

“No, no, he left-- I mean, he was gone until a week ago, the Bond-- the powers returned on their own--”

“ _Why?_ ” The snarl brought silence on its tail, the Whaler nearest him stilled as if in fear. The tilt of that blank-eyed mask made him feel observed instead.

“... The Void works in mysterious ways?” one of the other Whalers said, uncertain, and got a savage elbow to the ribs from his partner.

“Why did _Daud_ return,” Corvo spat, and all three Whalers looked at each other, tension in their shoulders.

“He never explained,” Thomas answered. “Only said he had things to take care of.”

Corvo turned away from them. His back to them, his eyes -- reflective like those of something feral -- hidden, he cut an indistinct figure in the gloom.

It took a long period of uneasy shuffling and barely discernible body language on the Whalers’ part before Corvo spoke up again. “And the Outsider?”

“We need to contact him.”

The Royal Protector didn’t scoff -- or at least, not audibly -- but the twist of his sneer made it clear what he thought of that line of action. “The Outsider is at no one’s beck and call.”

“You’re the only chance we’ve got,” Thomas insisted, leaning forward, already looking recovered from the fight. “Granny Rags has disappeared, dead according to some, and-- we don’t have any leads on any other Marked. We’ve tried the shrines, but nothing catches the Outsider’s attention like you.”

Corvo’s eyes darted sharp to the Whaler’s face, but there was nothing to see in the whaling mask that might have told him why that particular remark seemed to stand out from the rest.

“I don’t care,” he said, finally, and started walking for the door.

“Lord Protector--” Thomas called, then, clearly aware pleading would get him nothing, motioned to the two Whalers down the tunnel. “You -- bring him out!”

Momentary curiosity stopped Corvo in his tracks. When he turned back to the assassins, a fourth Whaler was drawing someone else -- much smaller, much _younger_ , than any Whaler he’d ever seen -- into sight. He frowned. Was he supposed to be worried for the child?

“Who is this?” he asked.

At a signal from one of the Whalers, the child unclasped his mask and drew back his hood. Underneath was a young boy -- almost as young as Emily. His face was angular, hungry, his eyes narrowed and trying not to be afraid. The hair on his head was stringy and brown. Thomas watched Corvo’s reaction carefully then, seeing nothing, spoke to the boy.

“Give him your name.”

The boy gave each of them a glance, his fingers tight and fumbling on the mask. He seemed caught between hunching out of sight and straightening to make his meager body match the iron of his gaze. A Whaler pushed him forward, and he refused to stumble when he looked Corvo in the eye.

“I’m Daud,” he said, his jaw tight.

Corvo stared.


	2. Chapter 2

“What am I meant to believe, here?” Corvo had turned back to the Whalers. Flint-eyed. Unamused. His fingers brushed the hilt of his folding blade, retracted and sheathed when he’d gone for the door, the menace in the movement clear. “That Daud somehow lost forty years?”

“About thirty, actually,” Thomas said, his tone light but still strained from the hit to his ribs -- or maybe because it was clear on Corvo’s face how flimsy their story was, how little they had to show it was true but some street urchin willing to wear an assassin’s name.

“Mm.” The whaling masks still gave nothing away, but Corvo glared them straight in their opaque lenses like he could see to the shrinking pupils behind. “And the Outsider is the cause.”

Three unreadable masks exchanged a look; the fourth only tightened his grip on the dark-haired boy’s shoulder. Thomas straightened.

“Well, it’s--”

“The hardest thing to believe,” Corvo cut in, tight as garotte wire, “is that you thought I would fall for this.” All the Whalers but one -- twitching like he’d winced, one of the two who’d appeared when Corvo cut into the first one’s throat -- turned on Thomas in unison. They must have been against this idea, whatever it was. Corvo reined in some of the anger as he turned to the boy. “You -- whatever they’re paying you, I can make it double. What’s your name?”

“Pay?” the boy blurted, startled enough that the fourth Whaler had to readjust his grip on his shoulder. Then, regaining control, “Uh -- it’s Daud, I said.” His narrow gray eyes skipped between Corvo and the Whalers, more uncertain than shrewd.

Corvo frowned, huffing with impatience. “No, your real--”

“You’re Serkonan, right?”

The question stopped him short. Even if he wasn’t being particularly intimidating, people tended to avoid interrupting him. “What?”

“You have an accent,” ‘Daud’ continued; his dour face made it sound like an insult. “You’re the boss.” It was barely a question.

Corvo’s frown deepened, confusion dragging him in despite himself: “The--?”

“Mach’s boss. He told me about you. You’re my new-- employer?”

“Your-- No, stop,” Corvo said, short and pressing, forceful enough that the silent Whaler holding the boy stepped protectively forward. He was given a bare, contemptuous glance before Corvo turned to Thomas again. “I’m leaving. Put him back where you found him, and _get out of this city_.”

“Attano--”

“ _Shit!_ ”

That was the silent one -- silent until that point, at least -- a burst of noise before he shot off down the sewer corridor, yelling, “Daud! Stop! You’ll get lost down here!”

Everyone simultaneously realized the boy was gone.

The two other Whalers promptly sprinted after the first, the tails of their coats snapping sharp behind them, and Thomas hesitated just long enough to send Corvo a dark, unclear look before following.

Corvo looked on in consternation, reluctantly amused; it was enough to shake off the last of the rage and fear that had submerged him at the sight of the Whaler’s mask on the roof. He could still hear the Whalers’ tramping and splashing, not one making an effort to be discreet in their panic. More than that, he knew the sewers under Dunwall Tower well: his sleepless nights had been useful in that at least, sending him chasing after anxieties through these damp underground tunnels. As long as they kept to the sewer system, his Void-sight would let him track them down. He had time to think on his next move now.

He’d spent little time near the Whalers -- just long enough to be captured and escape with Daud’s, the _real_ Daud’s key -- but the rumors and the results of their work had been enough confirmation of what he’d seen then: organized, methodical, _careful_ despite the collateral they tended to leave in their wake (and the bizarre mistake of leaving him in a shallow hole under rotten boards and near to no surveillance). The few reports he’d gotten on their activities after taking back Dunwall Tower -- Daud missing, one of his subordinates having taken his place -- had presented that part as unchanged. Could they have spiralled since Daud’s disappearance? Corvo had assumed the old man was still in charge somehow, from how the Whalers seemed to have switched tacks and avoided assassination contracts (and that had been hard to swallow, that Daud might have been telling the truth, might have grown a conscience; it burned to think he’d only done so after murdering Jessamine), but maybe he really had gone. Thomas had said so, at least.

The pieces didn’t quite fit. Corvo could feel his instincts rearing their anxious, untrustworthy heads. More puzzling than the rest: how convinced the boy had appeared. Not just acting, no, but afraid and _certain_ that he’d grasped the situation, calling Corvo his _employer_ \-- before Corvo turned from him, left him confused and anchorless. They’d _all_ seemed confused, really. All four of the Whalers. Lost. Adrift. Like they’d misplaced something precious only just returned to them.

(He remembered the feeling, how difficult it had been to hang on. How Coldridge had broken his fingers trying to make him let go.)

He’d see this through a little longer.

The Whalers’ footsteps had faded; he hurried in the direction they’d gone, their golden shapes flashing across his vision.

Corvo found them several branching corridors later: three of the Whalers had cornered the boy, and the fourth was inching toward him with hands placatingly held out. One of them -- impossible to recognize them now -- whipped around at the sound of his boots on the tiles.

“Lord Protector!” The words were spat, more out of surprise than anger. The boy took that moment of unfocused attention to make a break for it.

The fourth Whaler was on him in an instant, transversing across the narrow room and catching him by the back of his belt then holding him by his wrists, trapped there in the small of his back; the boy twisted and writhed like a netted hagfish, the Whaler’s grip firm but surprisingly kind -- then stilled, and went quiet when his eyes met Corvo’s in the open door.

Visibly discarding a number of conversation starters, Thomas thinned his lips and went for, “So you didn’t leave.” The mask, which he’d taken off almost as soon as the other Whaler had noticed Corvo, lay in the palms of his hands, cradled like an offering. Maybe he was trying to inspire trust. There was a bruise on his cheek from where Corvo had thrown him into the wall, and the cut on his neck, still red and wet over his adam’s apple, stood out stark against his pale skin.

Corvo said nothing, taking in his face, and made a move like he was turning back to the corridor.

“Daud has-- He has the Mark!” Thomas said, taking an involuntary step forward. Corvo stopped in his tracks.

They were desperate -- the barest sign of disinterest and the information had come running out. He made his decision.

“Why didn’t you start with that?” he said, unimpressed, and headed for the boy at the back of the space. He looked even smaller from up close; his forehead barely reached Corvo’s clavicle. “Show me your hand.”

The boy shucked off his too-large gloves, thrust both hands forward, palms up. Corvo took his left one and turned it palm down. The Mark was branded there like the shadows in a deep, deep well.

“So do I work for you now?” the boy -- Corvo supposed he’d have to get used to calling him ‘Daud’ -- asked, the roughness of his voice at odds with his apparent age.

“Yes,” said Corvo. He let go of Daud’s hand. “You’ll be coming with me. Is there anything you want to bring?”

Almost all of the tension had drained from Daud’s thin shoulders at Corvo’s answer, but his expression was still guarded, unsure, as he shook his head. “Go where?”

“Where I work.”

Corvo looked back to the other Whalers -- the one who’d caught Daud squeezed the boy’s shoulder one last time before transversing back to the rest -- and stopped at Thomas, who was still looking at him with something like cautious hope in his eyes and the slant of his mouth.

“I want all of you gone,” Corvo said, final. The Whalers bristled as one like angry cats. “Don’t come anywhere near Dunwall Tower again -- except for you,” he added, pointing Thomas out. “You’re coming too. We have things to discuss.”

He took Daud’s arm and strode back into the stinking, humid mess of the sewer. He knew a way into Dunwall Tower from here, but he wasn’t about to show it to a Whaler.

They’d be taking the long way back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter than the last chapter i think -- probably i could have merged the two, but i simply couldn't resist that cliffhanger. sorry my peops
> 
> warning: an excess of italics, because i do love me some audible emphasis


	3. Chapter 3

Corvo drew closed the curtains, veiling the light and any prying eyes and casting soft shadow across the length of his office. It was one of the smaller rooms in Dunwall Tower, quarters made even tighter by the thickly-packed shelves and the heavy desk covered in reports and correspondence, but the gloom stretched its darker corners like cracks into the Void. Thomas ran a cautious eye across the desk and settled still standing at one corner. Corvo sank into his chair. His eyes, piercing, pinned the Whaler in his place.

“Why show yourself at Dunwall Tower?” Corvo asked, and Thomas drew breath as though to answer -- then held it, wrong-footed. This wasn’t the kind of question he’d been expecting. While he swallowed his first response and reasserted his sense of calm, Corvo watched him, hawk-eyed and outwardly indifferent.

“We tried--”

“It’s stupid to appear on your enemy’s doorstep and expect a warm welcome,” Corvo cut in, still savagely expressionless, before turning to his desk in search of paper and a pen. “You caused a panic. I would have killed you.”

Thomas shoved down his instinctive reply -- _yet you didn’t, and I barely had to beg_ \-- and said, “We tried contacting you through your network, but none of your spies we’d singled out would accept a message. I guess after Burrows and his lot they weren’t eager to test your patience. Contacting you inside the Tower ran the added risk of being seen, not to mention the extra security measures you’ve put in place.” Thomas eyed the wall of shelves behind the desk; beyond it was the empty bedroom Corvo had told the boy not to leave. “Daud was in danger. My safety was something I was willing to risk.”

At that, Corvo glanced up at him, no sneer on his stern face but a tightness in his lips and eyes that showed exactly what he thought of such a statement. Daud wasn’t worth that, it said. Daud wasn’t worth a squat over a chamber pot.

“I wouldn’t call _that_ ,” he said, gesturing at the wall like they could see Daud through it (and they could, courtesy of the Void), “danger.”

“He’s a child,” Thomas shot back, aware he was treading a thin line. “He got lost in Rudshore, _our territory,_ he might get himself _killed_ \--”

“ _I_ might kill him,” Corvo reminded him, voice soft, eyes blood-dark. Thomas suddenly remembered the wild-faced, half-dead storm he’d last seen soundlessly darting through the Whaler hideout, and drew control back up around him like a cloak. His emotions had no place under those hunter’s eyes.

“You offered him mercy, once.”

“I left him with his life,” Corvo growled, biting. “Don’t fool yourself thinking it was mercy.”

After leaving Corvo in that hole in the floor -- a poor prison for someone with Daud’s abilities, but he’d been barely conscious, ravaged by the poison, bones stark beneath the layers of his coat and skin -- there had been little time to discuss things with Daud, and even less between those nebulous moments where he’d been defeated by the Lord Protector and the point where he vanished entirely. Thomas had never learned what, exactly, had happened between them. He’d imagined an impressive battle of wills and skill at first where his Master was divided, protecting his Whalers as well as his new purpose in the wake of the Empress’s murder, and Corvo was single-minded, a worthy opponent despite his condition -- then, a year after Daud’s disappearance, it had become a dispassionate clash of intentions, Daud already planning his escape from accountability, Corvo… no different, really. Intent on saving the new Empress. Always the exemplary Lord Protector.

Thomas didn’t want to look too closely at the new perspective Corvo was offering. He felt off-balance enough without remembering the empty, sleepless look in Daud’s eyes after the attack on Rudshore. Blatantly trying to redirect Corvo’s ire, his eyes fell to the carpeted floor, submissive, demure.

Corvo’s expression flickered, then set again as calculated indifference. “Why do you think the boy is Daud?”

“The Mark,” Thomas answered, immediate and certain.

“The Outsider has other Marked.”

Thomas’s lips thinned, the information difficult to concede -- but Corvo must already know something of the connection shared by the Whalers. Too many of them had been dragged into the bowels of Coldridge, after Daud. “His and ours. Daud returned to Dunwall some seven days ago, but our… abilities didn’t, until-- the boy appeared. I don’t know why, but the bond Daud broke when he left came back with the kid.”

“You call it a bond…”

Thomas stiffened, expecting another caustic remark, but Corvo let the sentence hang unfinished. After a moment of heavy silence, he continued. “What has he told you?”

“He thought he was in Serkonos before the cold and the Flooded District convinced him we weren’t lying. Said his boss, Mach, would come after us and beat our faces in.” Thomas turned away to hide a smile under an equable mask. “He was bluffing. I don’t think he really believed his boss valued him enough for that.”

Corvo’s eyes searched his face, maybe -- probably -- looking for signs he was concealing something, and Thomas met his gaze, squaring his feet, open and defiant.

“Mach?”

“No idea who he is. Doesn’t correspond to any gangs or crime lords we know of, in Dunwall or Karnaca.”

“Maybe he came from another city. Saggunto. Bastillian.”

“We’ll look into it. I’ll tell you what we find.”

At first Corvo’s look had been sharp, a warning not to cross him or get in the way of his own searching, but at Thomas’s offer his eyes widened and every movement stilled momentarily. He hadn’t expected that.

“That’s… fine,” Corvo said, slowly, expression turning considering. “Send your reports to my agents. I’ll inform them you’ve been cleared.”

Thomas nodded, and a vague gesture from Corvo told him he could continue.

It struck him, like a bolt to the neck: reporting to the Lord Protector like this, in this dark, close room, filtered light falling across floorboards and thin carpets, was almost exactly like those other conversations -- the ones with Daud in the planning nook, during his short stint as the Knife of Dunwall’s second-in-command. The information fell too easily off his tongue. He wondered, for a floating second, whether Attano had set it up that way; decided that even if he hadn’t he would have no qualms taking advantage of the consequences. Thomas drew back into himself, stiffer now, hands clasping each other behind his back, and Corvo pretended he couldn’t see it.

“He’s tried to flee a number of times in the last three days,” Thomas said. “You might persuade him to stay for longer with food. He’s not starved, but most of his attempts took him by our stores, I think by design more than chance.” He paused, swallowed, realizing something he’d relegated to the back of his mind. “... You’ll be keeping him here. In Dunwall Tower.”

Corvo said nothing. His face made it clear that, yes, that had been obvious, and the Whaler had dropped somewhat in his esteem for not having seen it sooner.

“The others might try to contact him,” Thomas warned. _The others_. Not him. He’d known the outcome of his decisions; he just hadn’t let himself see it until now, when it was too late to turn back and find another, more dangerous option. And to think this was the safest -- what an irony. “They won’t be… comfortable with the idea of leaving him to you.”

“Smart of them. But make it clear I won’t tolerate interference.” His voice was dismissive. His gaze sank like needles in Thomas’s skin. “Why come to me, trust me, if your murdering lackeys don’t?”

“I don’t trust you either -- but he made it clear he wouldn’t stay with us. Anyway, he seems to think he knows you.” Thomas let himself unwind, dragging a hand back through his pale hair and allowing a smile to bend his mouth, needing the tension buzzing in the room to de-escalate. “He kept calling us ‘ass-pale Gristol choffers’, so maybe it’s ‘cause you’re Serkonan. I’m just hoping he’ll keep from getting himself killed until you can…” his hand wavered vaguely in mid-air, a casual concession of ignorance on the subject, “... speak to the Outsider. We haven’t had any luck with that so far.”

Again, Corvo kept silent, eyes fixed on some distant point as if he might consider answering -- but he only looked down to his desk and the paper with his notes tightly scrawled in shorthand. “Mm. If I need to contact you--”

“We have a dead drop near the old Hound Pits pub, by Daiger&Dial,” Thomas said. “You hid out there, during the Rat Plague, didn’t you? You should know your way around.”

There had been a gleaming hint of bared teeth at the interruption, but now Corvo was only staring, dark-eyed and intent, hands stiff on his knee and the reports papering his desk. Thomas straightened, bowing his neck just enough to be noticeable. “... Or there’s another on the Old Waterfront, a vent in the fishery. We’ll leave a charm there for you to find it.”

“Good,” Corvo rasped out. “Now leave.”

Thomas did. The shadow trail he left behind looked like shreds of burnt parchment, fluttering, but it smelled nothing like fire; in the close-walled room, the deep stench of salt was overpowering.

Corvo threw open the curtains and windows, took a moment to check for the golden silhouettes of any creeping Whalers through his Void-blackened eyes, and swept out of his office.

The boy would wait. First, he was going to make sure Emily was alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and another! still trying to get a grip on Thomas's character and how he'd react to dealing with Corvo
> 
> just an aside: i've been looking into lore/meta around the Void and apparently the whole ocean smell theme going on in a lot of fic is entirely fan theory, but i'm very fond of it? so i guess i'll handwave it as being because of the Outsider's own connection to the ocean, and that influencing certain aspects of the Void while he's occupying it; another god would have a different effect on how powers and the Void are perceived


	4. Chapter 4

When Corvo came through the secret passage to the safe room, Emily burst from the little bedroom and ran up the stairs to meet him halfway, yelling, “Corvo!” and throwing herself into his arms.

Her weight almost sent him crashing down; she was bigger now, not the little girl she’d been upon his return from that voyage around the Isles, harder to pick up and twirl around, but he did it anyway just to hear her half-outraged, half-delighted shrieking before she squirmed out of his hold. Emily stood on the stair just under his with arms stubbornly crossed, and refused to be cowed by their difference in height as she glared up at his face. “You took your time,” she fumed, looking away and locking her shoulders. “I’ve been waiting for hours! I was _bored_ , and my Guard wouldn’t let me peek out the windows in the bedchamber. I bet you didn’t even fight anyone,” she accused, pointing at him in his undamaged overcoat.

“We’ve already talked about the windows, it’s for your safety,” Corvo answered by rote, a great unfurling wave of tension breaking from the depths of his chest. Here she was, hale and whole; the paleness gone from her face still round with youth; her eyes still lined, still a bit tired, but bright and alive with the knowledge that he was here, too. “And no, I didn’t fight anyone: there was a man on the roof, but he ran before I could get to him. I was trying to follow his trail. Should’ve known it’d be impossible to track anyone down in the middle of the Tower District.”

“You never learn,” Emily said like this had happened a thousand times, and Corvo laughed. It was a quiet thing, a sliver of teeth showing and a slightly harder exhale, but Emily smiled wide enough to wrinkle her nose when she heard it.

The lie settled in Corvo’s belly, placid though bubbling queasily. He usually made it a point of honor to be honest to the young Empress -- to his _daughter_. This, though, was something he didn’t know how to explain without fueling her hungry curiosity. He didn’t even want to try imagining the repercussions of the Empress of the Isles expressing any interest in assassins, time travel, or the occult. Her undying affection for piracy was difficult enough to direct.

“Come on,” she urged, grabbing him by the elbow and hurrying back up the stairs to the royal chambers. “Let’s go back outside, there’s still time left before dark--”

Corvo didn’t stop her, but he did slow their pace even as Emily tried tugging him into a trot like she would a recalcitrant horse. “Emily,” he started, signing the all clear to the guards he passed, “you should be getting back to your lessons for the day. If you fall any further behind--”

“But you interrupted our walk!”

The words had escaped her. Dismay and embarrassment vied for control of her face after the outburst; she let go and turned away, arms crossing again defensively, scuffing the carpets with the heels of her leather shoes. Corvo reached for her shoulder and she stiffened under his palm.

“Schedules bend for no-one, or so Lord Plainstow says,” he said lightly. “Anyway, are you sure keeping Callista waiting is the best idea?”

“I’m the Empress, she can’t tell me off for it.” Her mouth quivered, childish and stubborn, but her shoulders slumped with reluctant defeat. She turned on her heel to pin him with a glare. “You’re eating dinner with us tonight,” she said, pulling at the hem of his vest to punctuate the order. “You’re not allowed to hole up in your study and drop crumbs all over your reports. Agreed?”

Corvo’s tone was serious, but his smile and the hand he let brush Emily’s back were both fond, gentle things. “Agreed.”

After sending a nearby guard to fetch Callista from wherever she’d been hid when the alarm had been raised, Corvo walked Emily to the small library on the third floor, where she and Callista usually pored over books following whim and inspiration. He said nothing when Emily slowed to just under a leisurely amble. Her arms hung awkwardly at her sides when she wasn’t holding them behind her back, becoming the picture of studious observation as she stopped now and again to peer at paintings she’d never paid mind to before. He kept wanting to reach out and take that hanging hand; Emily had done it herself only a few years before, but now she kept her distance, fidgeting and eeling out of his grip if he forgot himself. Trying to enjoy her indiscreet attempts to spend more time with him, he kept his hands to his pockets and the pommel of his sword.

Callista had already arrived by the time they reached the library’s open door; her smile and nod to Corvo were short, subdued, but she welcomed Emily with open warmth, spreading out a selection of treatises she must have been perusing before the day’s turmoil. Corvo indulged in watching them only a moment. There were other things he needed to attend to.

The door to the small abandoned bedroom was still shut and locked, and if he focused he could make out the sounds of small objects being picked up and set down again. The boy must have gotten bored and started rummaging around. Corvo unlocked the door.

The place had no windows: a couple of low-burning candles were the only source of light. The whale oil lamp by the cot hadn’t been turned on. The bo-- Daud stood in the far corner, not at all where the sounds Corvo had heard were coming from, his hands between his back and the wall like he was hiding something. A quick glance around the room told Corvo nothing he’d noticed was missing.

“Sit,” he said, gesturing at the cot, and Daud shot it a nervous look before crossing the room and settling stiffly down on the very edge. Nothing in his hands either, now that Corvo could see them. “Tell me your name again.”

“Daud,” he answered, frowning, impatient. His eyes darted from one side of the room to the other.

“And your family name?”

Daud locked into stillness like a startled animal. It wouldn’t have surprised Corvo to see those quick gray eyes gleaming like a cat’s.

“It’s not a trick question,” he added after a few seconds of wary silence. Daud narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t have one, then.”

“That’s fine.” There was a low desk at the foot of the bed; one of the candles flickered uneasily in a holder. Corvo let himself drop into the too-small chair next to it. “Here you’ll use the name Dav Lynch. If anyone asks, that’s the one you give.”

Daud tracked his movements, still stiff where he perched on the cot.

“Understood, Dav?”

“Yeah boss.”

“And you’ll call me sir.”

“... Yeah, sir.”

They observed each other a moment: Corvo with hands linked, his elbows balanced on his knees, appraising like a hunting gull; Daud itching his ear or fingering the belt at his waist, where there should have been a sheath for a blade, until he seemed to remember himself and drew back into near-immobility.

Even beyond the reasonable doubts he had about the Whalers’ story -- nothing of what he’d seen Daud do suggested _time-hopping_ was one of his talents -- Corvo had a hard time connecting the cruel, taunting man he’d last met two years ago in the dilapidated ruin of the Chamber of Commerce to this cautious rat-faced boy. Despite the Mark on his hand, he might only be the Outsider’s latest pet project -- bad enough, in Corvo’s mind, to warrant being watched. That the Whalers appeared to really believe he was their old master was inconsequential.

Though… their powers were a piece of the puzzle he couldn’t figure out. He hadn’t thought too deeply on how so many Marked had managed to find their way to Daud, back when he first faced them, but in the weeks after Havelock’s death quite a few of their numbers had ended up in Coldridge cells. Almost like they no longer knew how to escape the grasp of the City Watch. Young ones, mostly, who knew near to nothing about Daud -- but just enough to tell them about the origins of their abilities, and why those powers had vanished so quickly. Corvo had stood in on every interrogation, made sure the poison needles were gone from their gloves. Seeing each one crumble to screaming and weeping had done nothing to fill the hole in his own belly.

Corvo closed his eyes, tight, and pressed hard into the bridge of his nose. No need to dwell on that.

“You’re my nephew,” he finally said. “My-- My sister’s son. Beatrici. You were born in Morley and sent here, to me, because your father died and your mother wanted to leave. Without you.” From behind the bars of his fingers, Corvo caught something twisting across Daud’s face, but it was gone too fast to make sense of. “You don’t know where your mother is now. I agreed to take you in, in memory of my sister. That’s how I’m going to explain why you’re here. Remember it.”

He didn’t usually have to talk so much. Most of the people under his command were competent enough to know what to do before he had to ask, and Emily was the sole exception to how conversation felt like it might drain the life-force right out of him.

Daud looked almost as strained himself.

“Uh… I never did infiltration, for Mach,” he said, frowning deeply. “Is that what you… hired me for?”

Cold-eyed, Corvo caught his gaze and held it.

“You’ll do what I tell you.”

Daud averted his eyes to the floor, muttering, “Yessir.”

Corvo settled back in his chair. “Tell me where you’re from.”

“Serk-- Morley?” The boy stumbled on the answer, his glance questioning. Corvo shook his head.

“No -- you, Daud.”

Daud looked down at his hands, something in his face asking, _isn’t it obvious?_ “Serkonos.”

“What city?” Corvo insisted. Now Daud looked confused, like he couldn’t understand where this was going.

“... Karnaca.”

“Huh.” Corvo paused, considering the information. He didn’t think the Whaler had lied when he’d told him they had nothing concerning a criminal named ‘Mach’ in Karnaca -- the Void had given him a sixth sense of sorts for untruths, or maybe that was just his own well-developed paranoia -- but it was always possible the man worked on a level below common knowledge, or moved around too much for renown. He’d need to have someone look into it deeper. “How did you get to Dunwall?”

“I woke up here. In-- where your masked men were living.” The frown was back full force, but Corvo was more curious as to why the boy had assumed the Whalers worked for him.

“So you don’t know how.”

“No.”

Corvo let silence fall between them. It was an easy quiet for him, soothing, but he couldn’t tell whether Daud thought the same: he seemed to stiffen and relax intermittently, his eyes gone back to scanning the room now that he wasn’t being directly questioned. What new interest he found in it, after the time he’d spent having only this room to stare at, was a mystery to Corvo.

“... Tell me what you know about me,” Corvo finished, deciding to draw this interrogation to a close. Daud glanced at him sidelong.

“You’re Mach’s boss. You’re why I’m here.” He clenched his jaw, like his next words were a secret, or tasted nasty. “You own me.”

That earned him a long, unblinking look, but Corvo said nothing to the contrary; instead he hummed, mostly to himself, and stood. The sudden movement startled Daud away from him, but as soon as he’d leaned back the boy straightened again, mulishly frowning.

Corvo made for the door. Before his hand could touch the handle, he heard the boy call out, uncertain but steady: “Didn’t think you’d be one of them rich bastards.”

It was stupid -- hearing those two words and remembering another man, worn out after a hard battle, his gray eyes empty: _All the money exchanging hands…_ But here, those words in the boy’s naive mouth rang in him like condemnation, like proof. Corvo balled his hands into fists to stop himself retorting with physical violence.

“The door will be locked.” His own voice sounded distant in his ears. “Don’t try getting out.”

He went through the door and locked it behind him, as promised. The bedroom beyond stayed silent. A crypt. Corvo could almost make himself believe it was full of dirt, and corpses, rotten, waiting, their milky worm-eaten eyes rolling to find him through the wall.

He left for his office. His steps were carefully measured to be no quicker than his usual walking speed.


	5. Chapter 5

“Dark hair, dark skin. Scar through his eyebrow, right here.” Corvo drew a sharp line with his thumb to the inner corner of his left eye. “Gray eyes.”

“Gray? You sure the boy’s Serkonan?”

Corvo shot Slackjaw a quelling look, but his half-smile was amused. “Don’t trust a Serkonan to recognize his own kind?”

“You’ve been in Dunwall, what, twenty years now.” The ash at the end of Slackjaw’s cigar crumbled with a flick of his fingers, and he carefully brushed it away from his pants. “That’s gotta make you an honorary Gristol man, at least.”

A silvery haze of cigar smoke obscured the rafters of the attic; the air was heavy with the smell of it. Every so often Corvo’s gaze would drift to the closed and shuttered skylight, wishing for a damp evening breeze, then fixate back on the nondescript walls, on Slackjaw, or the desk between them. He was familiar with the need to be safe from prying eyes. Even two years after Vera Moray’s attempt on the man’s life, it showed a surprising amount of trust for him to let Corvo into his latest hideaway.

 

*

> _(It looked like the carpet had been folded in two to soften the floor._
> 
> _The boy disentangled himself clumsily from the nest of sheets under the bed. He hadn’t removed a single layer, the gloves having been already discarded the evening before to paw through everything on the shelves. At Corvo’s prompting, he adjusted the knobs of the whale oil lamp until it glowed faintly bluish with Void-fire. His hands lingered near it. Disappeared deep in his pockets a moment later._
> 
> _Corvo had been eighteen, his first time in Gristol, a weathered soldier; yet still the air had sunk deep under his skin with clammy fingers, all his extremities numbed within days. The memory twisted in his chest and tightened his throat. “I’ll bring you extra blankets, later. And food,” he said, his voice detached.)_

*

 

“I’m certain,” Corvo assured.

He’d had his own reservations at first, of course. “Daud” looked the part at least with his pared-down face and dark coloring; the rest was close enough to what Corvo could recall, but old memories of a two-minute speech and five minutes of bared-tooth fighting weren’t much to draw a precise picture from. His accent was almost what Corvo would have heard when he still lived in the narrow streets of the Batista District, back in Karnaca.

 

*

> ( _“‘S cold as Shind’s pits in here.” The petulant defensiveness of the tone did nothing to distract Corvo from the memory-impression: wind off the mountain, keening, shearing warmth from the skin. Later: “Oracular’s tits,” muttered and vehement. He hadn’t heard that one since his early military days._ )

*

 

The right face, yes, and the right rapid-fire inflection, but neither was conclusive in a city like Dunwall, hostile and dreary and the whale-oil bonfire dream of every desperate soul in the Isles (except Morley: their defeat still rankled, he supposed). The flesh pits of the Flooded District had held bodies of every creed and origin. What children escaped had either died in the gutters or crawled through to survival the two following years, many latching on to gangs for some kind of identity. It wouldn’t take much effort to pick the spawn of a Serkonan immigrant out of the mess.

 

*

> ( _Sometimes the kitchen staff made efforts to make him feel… welcome, even twenty years after the fact. The fruits of their endeavours were interesting enough to savour._
> 
> _Daud held his fork gingerly and stared at the plate like it had grown teeth and a worrying growl._
> 
> _“What?” Corvo snapped, though Daud hadn’t let his apprehension stop him scooping a third of the plate down his throat in record time. The boy chewed his food like a difficult question._
> 
> _“... What’s this supposed to be?” he asked, poking the mound of white rice. The juices of the stewed meat had browned the bottom edge. “And the musakka’s warm. Don’t they know anything in this country?”_
> 
> _Corvo snorted, caught off guard -- the boy stiffened in a wave so brutal his plate almost slid off his lap. He stuffed more eggplant in his mouth like that would hide his confused scowl. The rice lay neglected until everything else had been thoroughly polished away._
> 
> _The funniest thing was, Corvo had thought almost exactly the same. The kitchen staff were kind, yes -- but they had no idea how to make a Serkonan dish.)_

*

 

Too much effort, though, to find and ship in the genuine article -- and the Mark, always the Mark. When had the Outsider noticed him? Before, or after the Whalers had picked him up?

Slackjaw watched him out of the corner of his eye, then gave a final pull on his cigar, like a conclusion, and stubbed it out on the edge of his desk.

( _The ashtray’s right there_ , Corvo’s disapproving eyebrows seemed to say as he glanced to the upturned crate a couple of strides away. Slackjaw huffed into his mustache dismissively.)

“What about them Whalers?” he asked. “Used to hang around the Distillery. Slackjaw’s no fool -- they musta been behind some of the death an’ madness in my streets back then. One of ‘em,” he wagged a thick tobacco-stained finger like Corvo had questioned his suspicion, “nearly got me while I was gettin’ a shave, but right then Craxton came in to deal with the still. Startled ‘em so bad they magicked themselves right out.” He laughed. “Ain’t so surprising when you consider he didn’t have no pants on.”

Corvo smirked, hiding it behind a pensive hand -- “Really.” --  but Slackjaw’s good humor was short-lived.

“They got a reputation,” he said, leaning forward in emphasis. “A bad one.”

“I know.”

“Assassins like that don’t keep their word unless it’s got coin attached.” His fingers ran along the chain of his locket like a nervous habit. “An’ there’s the witchery -- you trust a man who can vanish from under your nose?” Blind to the irony, Slackjaw grimaced like the idea left a bad taste in his mouth.

“I don’t trust them,” Corvo replied, “with or without the Outsider’s help. I have men keeping an eye on Emily through the day, patrols on the ramparts -- I’ve looked into every possible way to get through, believe me, and taken measures against them. The boy is in a locked room with no windows. He can’t leave.”

 _As for Emily’s Guard --_ those _men,_ he didn’t say, _I have to trust. I can’t afford not to._

“And I _am_ looking into Serkonos myself,” he added with a gesture to the letter he’d come in with, stamped and sealed, left on Slackjaw’s desk.

It was a dangerous game to mention anything approaching heresy, be it in speech or writing: the Abbey may have been weakened, even crippled, by the rapid political turnover and the excommunication or death of two of their High Overseers during the Interregnum, but that only made them all the more rightfully watchful and desperate in their suspicion. It had calmed, admittedly, in the two years since -- but not enough for Corvo to comfortably send a sketch of the Outsider’s Mark to the Duke of Serkonos, or ask into any recent supernatural phenomenon in his birth city, never mind the risk of interception by other enemies of the throne. He still had no idea who the boy really was; better to keep him a secret inside the Tower for now, rather than risk him being made a target and putting Emily in danger as collateral. Official channels were out of the question.

It was cases like this where Slackjaw’s respect and business contacts came in most useful.

“I’ll get it sent along with the next shipment,” Slackjaw said, getting up from his wide-backed chair. He took a bottle of whiskey from the crates at the back of the room, inspected the color in the dim light, the liquor thick and dark behind the glass; poured a measure into a doubtfully clean glass. “Drink?” he asked, holding the glass out. Corvo shook his head. “Suit yourself.” Half of it slid down his throat; the rest came with him as he leaned back against his desk, a casual kind of businesslike.

From the label, fresh-printed and soberly styled, the bottle had come out of his own operation -- it was a recent development, the taste still being refined, but this one seemed to please him if the way Slackjaw savored it was anything to go by. The letter would go out with the rest of this run, and Slackjaw’s contact in Karnaca would make sure it reached its destination.

“Can’t guarantee anythin’ on the boy, mind.” He made a vague gesture with his glass. “Orphan boys is common fare for gangs, even them what are from Serkonos,” a pointed flick of his free hand, “an’ most of ‘em don’t particularly give out their names for free.”

“Mm.” Corvo sank forward, leaning his palms heavily on the desk, and dropped to his elbows to card his hands through his hair. Said, on a gusting sigh, “Anything at all would help.” _Please._

Slackjaw paused with the glass at his lip. It clinked when he set it down. “You need rest, my friend.” Corvo straightened again, looking away. “I’ll tell my men I’m lookin’ to recruit him. Slackjaw’s heard good things, thinks it deserves a reward, hm?” The whiskey was pressed into his hands, and Corvo only gave it a second’s thought before throwing it back, relaxing into the burn. Slackjaw’s eyes were a strange weight on him. “Now get yourself home. Your little girl must be waitin’, no?”

He made his way back to the Tower by way of the rooftops, leaving the building through a third-floor window. The setting sun threw stark knife-cut shadows across the streets. Evening came on fast; barely halfway and he was nothing but a darker silhouette against the night-black sky, swift and darting, impossible to keep track of. The back of his hand burned with flickering Void-light, shining clear through the thick leather of his gloves.

It was -- exhilarating, in a way, to chase across the city of Dunwall like his fears were something he could hunt, living prey, smelling him coming with a blade in his hand. (He clenched his fists like there was something there to hold -- but no, the sword was sheathed, under his coat.) Adrenaline shot through him cold and prickling when he slipped on a loose tile and righted himself, Blinking to the next objective, air clogging his throat like a beating heart. He would crash later, he knew, dragged down into sleep like a dead man, but better that than the slow grinding down of his energy over days, his bed like a nest of adders.

He’d been the Royal Protector for twenty-two years now; the role had fit him well, like a tailored suit. Taking on the mantle of Spymaster as well hadn’t, perhaps, been his smartest idea.

Burrows (that snake) had benefited from the luxury of entire days of time, free to deal with spies and potential dangers and the endless flow of reports from the Watch, from his spider’s den of information networks, from self-important individuals, hearsay or hard evidence, fact, wishful fiction -- all Corvo could do to keep up was delegate to a diligently trimmed core of officers, who then passed what salient bits and pieces they found important to him. Meanwhile he spent his hours at (a respectful distance from) Emily’s side.

His silence and intimidating glower, at least, were two more weapons to his daughter’s arsenal. Small blessings.

But add to that their recent dour-faced addition -- feeding him early or late enough for no one else to be around and notice, trying to squirrel what little information he must have left out of him, making sure he hadn’t moved -- and Corvo found himself chin-high in briny water with the tide coming in.

He was _tired._ Loath as he was to admit it. Whatever had pushed him to engage in this mad game with the Whalers, he could hardly remember now.

Corvo entered the banquet hall to the sight of Emily and Callista already seated, the dishes out but still covered and steaming -- the smell made him suddenly aware of how empty his stomach was. It growled at him furiously.

“ _There_ you are!” Emily exclaimed, brandishing the fork that she’d been flourishing to make a point at him. He raised his hands in mock surrender.

“The meeting ran a little late. I’m sorry, Emily.”

“How’re you supposed to be my Royal Protector if your meetings keep running too long,” she muttered, mutinously chewing the forkful she’d just shoveled into her mouth. Her plate had been empty seconds ago; now it was heaped with what looked like a third of what had been brought up from the kitchens.

Callista, looking like she was mourning Emily’s short-lived sense of table propriety, visibly resisted hanging her head in her hands. “Emily, practice your manners, please.”

Emily didn’t pout -- she’d outgrown that quickly, following the interregnum -- but her lips thinned and her eyes glinted with resentment. It looked like this wasn’t the first argument they’d had that day. “Dinner like this is the only time I don’t _have_ to practice.” Despite that, she sat up in her chair and made a show of scooping up only small mouthfuls with knife and fork.

Conversation was subdued, Emily keeping mostly quiet, her eyes flicking from Callista to Corvo every few minutes. The last few days Callista had gone back to her uncle’s in the evening, lessons finished early enough that the walk wouldn’t have her eating at a unthinkable hour of the night; whatever they’d been discussing must have captured their attention enough to hold Callista here long after she would usually leave. Corvo felt a twinge of guilt at the thought that he didn’t really know where Emily was at in her curriculum, now, what she’d been learning lately, whether she’d made any headway on Tyvian history -- last month that had been her primary antagonist, too dry after the fascinating disaster of the Morley Insurrection.

He looked up from his plate to ask -- but before a word could leave his mouth Emily caught his eye and leaned forward, curious, predatory.

“I never find you sleeping in the morning anymore,” she started, chin propped on her open palm. The look on her face left him apprehensive; he could recall an eerily similar one from the year before, before weeks-long verbal warfare over the issue of his recurrent nightmares. He’d thought Emily had let the matter lie, since.

“It’s been a busy week,” he said, careful not to let the worry show. “Waking early means I get more done.”

Emily’s lips went thin again, but all she gave was a noncommittal hum. Then, “There’s a book I’ve been looking for, but I can’t find it anywhere. A murder mystery, I think, in the Golden Cat.”

Callista, the edge of a frown on her brow as she tried to remember: “Are you sure there isn’t a copy in the library? I remember it going around a lot a few years back.”

“No, I checked.” Emily’s dark eyes were still fixed on him like a bird of prey’s. “I think it’s in the guest bedroom. You know, the one next to your office?”

 _That_ strike of adrenaline was unwelcome. Corvo hoped he hadn’t blanched, too telling a reaction to so seemingly innocent a request; he always forgot Emily’s eyes were as sharp as his own had gotten. (Maybe sharper.)

A dangerous few seconds’ faltering, and he finally said, “Ah, I locked that one, didn’t I? Since no one has come through to stay.”

The thin-lipped tightness of Emily’s mouth turned into a grimace, her fidgeting hands to fists. She was definitely glaring now.

“Corvo.” Dark eyes, _Corvo's_ eyes, flaring with some pent-up emotion, and her anger-pale face washed out by the whiteness of her frilled suit -- she was getting too old to wear white, he thought incongruously. “Who’s the boy on the third floor?”

Callista paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. Some sixth sense -- the one that told him when he was being watched -- said the guards set up at either end of the hall were listening intently.

Corvo steepled his fingers and tried not to panic.


	6. Chapter 6

“What boy?” Corvo asked, weak-voiced, inevitable consequences forming a knot in his throat.

“I talked to him through the door.” Emily’s hands were curled together now, pressed white-knuckled against her mouth. “He said his name was Dav.” She didn’t ask who again, but the demand was clear; the boy existed, and Corvo must know about him, and so she should have known -- but she didn’t. What, then, was he, to be hidden away?

Corvo swallowed. The tink of Callista’s fork hitting her plate was like a wound in the silence. He felt terribly, terrifyingly exposed.

Two spots of color appeared high on Emily’s cheekbones. One tiny, delicate hand lifted -- Corvo watched it rise, mindless -- a steady, certain hand -- one of those increasingly frequent moments where the regality of her blood burned through -- and gestured to either end of the hall.

“Leave us,” she commanded, her eyes no longer on him, and added, “Please,” when she looked to Callista. “We want a private discussion with our Lord Protector.” The full force of her authority brought to bear; somehow, the _we_ sounded rightful in her thirteen-year-old mouth. At her words the guards filed down the hall, probably to the kitchens on the first floor. Callista rose to her feet as well. She hesitated for only a second, glancing between them, then left her half-full plate and followed the guards.

Corvo did not watch her retreating back, staring instead at the varnished surface of the banquet table, the dull reflection of the chandelier in the polish. Everything inside him had shrunk to a cold thorny pinpoint and the space left behind rang hollow. The image of Emily’s hands handling the lockpicks flickered and slashed through him: he’d taught her that, how to manipulate the tumblers, listen to them shift. She’d asked. The lock on the spare bedroom door was no complex thing; she could have gotten past it with a bit of effort. Probably already had at least once, back when she’d practiced the skill consummately.

He imagined that door opening; the boy behind it, with his wary eyes, his meager face, scrawny but still taller, sturdier than a teenaged girl, and in his hand a gleaming thing -- glass from the lamp -- a belt buckle angled to pierce -- the Mark, kindled, waiting --

The touch of a hand on his sleeve startled him back to the table, the quiet, the banquet hall.

“Corvo?” Emily took hold of his hand. She’d gotten up and come around the table without him noticing. (He was far, far too tired.) The anger was still there, a spark in her dark brown eyes, but fearful concern pulled at her mouth and twisted her brow.

“... I’m sorry, Emily.” He rubbed a hand across his face and let it rest there, leaning into it. “It-- I didn't-- I didn't know what to do with him.”

That was the truth, at least, relieving to reveal. It had felt right to take him, hide him in the Tower -- away from the Whalers and any intrusive instructions, isolated from whatever mess was cooking the Outsider had gotten invested in -- but beyond that Corvo had been lost. What if he was a plant, and hired to get to Emily? (What if he was a forty-year-old assassin who'd already ruined both their lives once? His grasp of reason laughed, and his deep mistrust of supposed common sense quailed and howled. Anything was plausible with the Outsider's Mark seared into your hand.) Emily was still whole, still alive. She hadn't opened the door --

Corvo realized, belatedly, that she probably wasn't the only one who could pick a lock. He was definitely scheduling a full night's sleep into the next few days. The only net gain from this entire situation was he could (probably) safely assume “Daud” wasn't there to kill his daughter.

In any case, he decided, making the boy known to the Tower would mean not having to sneak around at impossible hours any more. Another positive. (He was really digging for them now.)

“-- Do you remember me telling you about Beatrici?” he asked, dropping the hand from his face and looking Emily in the eye.

“Your sister?” Her eyes narrowed, then widened in certain realization. “He's-- Is he... her son? Your nephew?”

“I haven't seen Beatrici in... a very long time,” he said. “It was difficult, when I got the news-- that he was here. I've been trying to find out where to send him, but... Beatrici's very good at disappearing.”

At a stretch, even the last part could be denied as a lie -- but technicalities could not soothe his deepening sense of betrayal, and the words turned to acid in his mouth. Emily's automatic trust only left him feeling nauseous.

Something suffusingly warm seemed to dawn on Emily's face: a grin, beaming and toothy, and the grateful flutter of relief it coaxed out of him was entirely at odds with the roil of self-loathing.

“But that's wonderful!” she exclaimed, all her ire evaporated. “I've never had anyone my age in the Tower -- well, except for the maids sometimes, but they're never allowed to play, and they keep leaving -- but now there'll be someone else!”

With how happy she looked, bright-eyed and prancing like she was all of eight years old again, the shame couldn't touch him -- but he could feel it lying in wait: he'd never considered how lonely it must be for her, the only child in a brutally adult world, stuck here in the Tower with her dolls for only company. He'd thought the playing, the elaborate tea parties, the climbing on everything meant that this was enough. He should have looked more carefully.

Perhaps the maids or guards had children they could invite. Better that than having Emily's only friend be some strange urchin pretending to be his nephew.

Emily clambered up onto the dining table, entirely irreverent in her excitement, and pushed his plate out of the way to sit at the edge. “Tell me about him,” she demanded, leaning into his space, intent.

“I don't-- know much,” he said, and speaking made him realize he was almost smiling -- caught up in her enthusiasm. “He seems quiet.”

“You probably intimidate him,” Emily replied, sure of herself. Corvo didn't know whether to chuckle or flinch.

Without warning, Emily jumped from the edge of the table and ran in the direction of the stairs, throwing a demanding glare over her shoulder.

“Come on, Corvo!” He jerked out of his chair after her, barely saving it from a clattering fall. “Introduce me! You can't hide him in the guest room forever.”

He was helpless to do anything but follow, his gut tying itself in knots over how he was ever going to make this work.

In the next heartbeat Emily was standing in front of the locked door, looking back at him, arms crossed not-quite-patiently. He could only hope not picking the lock immediately was her way of extending an olive branch.

His hand on the handle, the key in the lock. It clicked. The door swung inward.

“Dav,” he called. “Come out here.”

The whale oil lamp was still lit though weak, flickering, and the boy froze where he stood in the corner, eyes fixed forward -- fixed on Emily, framed by the doorway.

Corvo moved forward, one hand dropping protectively onto Emily’s shoulder. The boy-- Daud-- _Dav_ watched it come down with a furtive glance to Corvo’s face.

Emily stepped away from her father’s grip and thrust a hand out.

“I’m Emily,” she said, unhesitant. “You’re Dav, we spoke yesterday.” ( _Yesterday._ You could almost call it restraint, that she’d waited until now.) Then, in a fit of childish impatience, she wiggled her fingers beckoningly.

Dav stared at her hand. “Uh.” Awkward, in a too-fast lunge to compensate for the seconds of indecision, he took her hand in his and shook. “Hey.”

He looked-- normal, Corvo was surprised to think. The Whaler attire was gone, exchanged for clothes Corvo had taken from the servants’ sets: a little short in the leg, perhaps, and the vest was worn to near transparency in places, but it fit the role he was meant to be playing, and so did his radiating nervousness.

Emily was grinning again, more wild child than simple delight. “Corvo doesn’t like dealing with new people, but now that I’m here you won’t have to stay cooped up anymore. You want to visit Dunwall Tower? It’s huge, and the gardens are _really_ creepy at night.”

She hadn’t waited a second to hear his answer; already she was turning to drag him along by the hand he’d naively given her.

“Well -- I guess --” he said, wrong-footed -- but he was quick to dig in his heels and shake her off, the familiar frown carving a furrow in his brow. “You don’t need to hold my hand for that.”

“I’m being a good host. Or, guide.” She waved her liberated hand loftily.

“In any case,” Corvo cut in, “It’s not really the time to go exploring. You should be getting ready to sleep, Emily.”

“Corvo. Do you really mean to tell me you intend to send this boy back to bed when it’s probably been days since he left his room?”

“Don’t call me _boy_ ,” Dav spat.

Both Corvo and Emily bristled at the sharpness of his voice, but before Corvo could intervene and stop this swiftly derailing train Emily stuck her hands on her hips and her elbows out, jaw stubbornly clenched. (The picture of Jessamine telling her off -- strange, what things came to haunt you after the fact.)

“ _Fine_ ,” she said in her most tempered-steel tone, “No need to be snappish. Now do you want to see the Tower or not?”

Dav was watching Corvo with pale, wary eyes -- had the boy seen his hand twitch for his sword? -- but he only paused a moment before turning back to Emily, head jutting forward and shoulders hitched up like a reluctant hound. “Fine.”

“Good,” she said, her smile smaller but pleased, and completely ignored Corvo’s earlier protests as she headed for the stairs in great enthusiastic strides. “Then let’s go!” Sighing (exhaustively) on the inside, Corvo trailed after them, keeping to a reasonable distance.

The tour began in the Tower’s halls, pointing out rooms as they passed --

_“This is the bigger library. We have books from all over the Isles here. Look, this one -- Callista was telling me about whaling boats earlier, there’s a bunch of diagrams and illustrations -- do you read?”_

_“... Not much.”_

_(huffing, her face in a confused grimace) “Corvo doesn’t either. I don’t understand it; there are such wonderful stories in books.”_

\-- but soon Emily was explaining the best alcoves to hide in, and precisely how to sit on the stair bannister so you could slide all the way to the bottom without slipping off, and as soon as they neared the entrance she made a beeline for the night-dark gardens.

“Emily --” Corvo called, and she slowed to look back at him. “... It must be past ten by now,” he said, almost wheedling, like she didn’t know full well it was pitch black out and near freezing.

“We’ll be fine. It’s only for a little while,” she assured him. Biting her lip was a bit too much, but the hopeful smile underneath kept the warnings from getting further than the tired, pinched line of Corvo’s mouth. He sighed, audibly this time.

“At least take my coat,” he said, conceding, and Emily sprang up to take it off his hands and throw it across her shoulders, immediately taking off through the double doors.

Dav hadn’t moved yet from where he’d stopped in the middle of the entrance hall, gaze sliding from Emily, disappearing into the gardens, to Corvo, slowly coming down the stairs. He only started walking again as Corvo came level with him.

“... Is she your favorite?” he asked, low enough to be inaudible beyond where Corvo stood.

Corvo looked at him sharply, eyes narrow and perplexed. “My what?”

“-- She works for you, doesn’t she?” The boy’s tone was aiming for casual, but his eyes kept jumping focus, from the chandeliers, to a vase by the vast doorway, to the shrubbery trees lining the path ahead.

“... Not exactly,” Corvo answered, and Dav went silent. Better to leave this be for now.

Emily’s voice drifted to them across the courtyard: “ _Dav!_ It’s not a tour if you’re not listening!”

Dav grimaced and jogged to catch up.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there! so i've been considering putting this fic on pause for a couple of weeks now, in part because the regular updates feel forced and i can't properly get my head around a plot, and also because i'd like to properly take the time to work on chapters with puppyblue before they're posted here.
> 
> in short, you get this new chapter for now, and hopefully an edited version of the fic at some point in the near future :D i'll be posting other fic to tide you over, but not regularly like this one was supposed to be.
> 
> (sorry if you're disappointed to hear this -- i felt really unsatisfied with the quality of the work i was handing you, and your support deserves much better than the slapdash way i was working on this. i hope it'll be worth the wait in the end :0)

Corvo observed the folded letter at the top of the day’s reports -- not quite like a primed grenade, but at the very least a rat the cat would have dragged in. It was still sealed, a messy line of wax holding the edges closed. Cheap. Slightly damp and smelling of fish. Definitely from the old waterfront. He cut through the seal and opened it.

The writing was careful, the penmanship stilted, and it was signed with a T -- but the content was enough to know where it had come from.

_Nothing from Cullero or Bastillian yet. Looking into dead gangs and cults. Considering D’s Mark, ‘Mach’ might have been involved in black magic instead of the usual crimes._

_Any information from your end would be welcome._

Corvo’s lips thinned. This wasn’t anywhere near a partnership where he was concerned, and he was still wary of a double play, but giving them the impression he was willing to work with them couldn’t hurt. How were they getting word from Serkonos so fast? He hadn’t expected anything for a month, at least.

_Have you contacted the black-eyed bastard? He has to be involved. He knows everything._

It took him a second to understand the phrase -- then his heart wrenched in his chest. Words right out of Daud’s mouth, probably. He read on.

_D still alive I see. We thought you’d killed him since he vanished for a week. Thank you. Any trouble with him?_

The Whalers were keeping watch, of course -- not surprising. Wherever they were hiding to do it, however, it couldn’t be within Dunwall Tower’s walls. He had been keeping an eye out as well. That last question, though -- the message ended there -- brought to mind something he had been asking himself since a couple of nights before, while Emily ran from one end of the courtyard to the other with Dav trailing not far behind; she had clambered up every short wall bordering the terrasses, boundlessly effusive in a way he didn’t remember seeing since before… before Burrows and his machinations, before the Pendletons, and the Golden Cat. She had still been driven, determined -- the way she took to lockpicking with gleeful dedication was example enough -- but her enthusiasm had… petered out. Corvo had barely seen it happen. It was only now, faced with that energy again, that he could feel the daunting absence of it in the last two years.

Shaking off the worry before it could sink in its claws, he jotted down a quick reply -- _Nothing yet. Making inquiries. D is fine._ \-- and set it aside. (The rest he’d gotten was good for that at least: the anxiety lingered less, didn’t stick to his ribs. Here was something he’d missed for months on end, and there was nothing he could do now to take those months back. Move forward. Move forward. Do better.)

A minute later he was at the guest room door; it was still early, and the servants wouldn’t take to the third floor for a while yet. The habit he’d made of keeping Dav a secret was a hard one to kill.

The door was unlocked. The room was empty.

Corvo only felt a vague sting of fear. _This is normal,_ he told himself, sweeping the room for Dav just in case before drawing back. _He’s wandering around again. He does that._

It had been the same the last two mornings, after Corvo had started leaving the door unlocked: Dav would have disappeared from his room during the night, and Corvo would find him fifteen minutes later in some corner of the Tower, touching things and watching the servants move through the corridors. (Or the guards, but from a much greater distance.) This time Dav was neither on the second nor first floors, and Corvo was considering climbing the stairs all the way to the top of the Tower when he saw, clearly visible through a window with an ochre-yellow scarf on, a gangling figure crossing the courtyard.

By the time Corvo had reached the Tower’s entrance Dav had moved again, but not far: only to the gazebo, where his brightly-colored scarf (where had it come from?) stood in sharp contrast against the gray of the river. He was standing still, slightly hunched, his face downturned to the cobblestones. Corvo’s stomach clenched like a fist.

As Corvo came slowly up the stairs, Dav looked up at him, face obscured by the scarf. Jessamine’s memorium was a silent mass at his feet.

“‘Her majesty’,” he said, glancing down. “She was an Empress?”

“I thought you didn’t know how to read.” The words fell out of Corvo’s mouth unchecked.

Dav scowled, hunching further down into the scarf. His voice came out muffled. “I said I didn’t read _much_.”

Corvo breathed. It took him by surprise, sometimes -- he still couldn’t believe this kid might be _Daud,_ the Knife of Dunwall, couldn’t give that thought a coherent shape; only saw the Serkonan boy, a little lost at finding himself in the middle of Gristol, a stranger, but far from dangerous -- and then sometimes Corvo would see Dav with a table knife in his hand, or hear an enemy’s words in his mouth, or find him somewhere _important,_ and he would feel -- afraid? Like he was certain he would find the assassin looking out of those gray eyes. Like he was _expecting_ it. It was as disorienting as a fever spell.

“We’re in Dunwall Tower,” the boy continued. His tone said he was having a hard time accepting that. He looked up at Corvo, gray eyes hard and cold and -- awed? impressed? “Mach said you were the best, but--” His jaw clamped shut like he hadn’t meant to say anything, and he walked jerkily to the edge of the gazebo, nervous and pacing until he turned to Corvo again -- but said nothing. His eyes kept flickering over the courtyard, following patrolling guards, a gull in flight, the sudden fall of a ray of sunlight, looking like he had a thousand questions lining up in his head and they were all trying to come through at once.

Corvo jerked his chin at the scarf. “Where did you get it?”

“Emily,” he said absently, pulling at the hem, then gave Corvo a wary glance. “I’ll give it back.”

“Mmm.” Corvo scanned the waterlock and what roofs he could see from here over the walls surrounding the Tower, momentarily switching to Void sight while Dav looked elsewhere. “The Whalers told me you kept trying to run while you were with them. Why haven’t you here?”

“The what?” Dav only looked lost, his face twisted up in confusion.

“The Whalers. The people with the masks, the ones you were with. You tried to run away from them.”

“There were holes everywhere in that shitheap,” Dav retorted sullenly. “It was easy.”

“But you haven’t tried that here.” Even if the boy didn’t know how to pick a lock, it wouldn’t have been all that hard to get one of the servants to come looking despite the warnings Corvo had left to leave it closed. He hadn’t tried anything. As far as Corvo could tell, he’d done his best to go unnoticed in the days he’d been locked away, until Emily came right up to the door and spoke to him through it. “Why?”

Dav shrugged. “You’re Mach’s boss, why would I?” His eyes drifted to the flat gray expanse of the river. “You’d kill me if I tried.”

That was -- a shocking reminder of his own conversation with that one Whaler, the one he supposed was their leader now. Thomas. Corvo hadn’t expected his own words to be handed back to him so casually. It left him feeling too light, his ribcage hollow.

He heard himself answer: “You’re certain I’d catch you.”

“Not worth the risk.” Dav’s eyes were flat and merciless.

Corvo said nothing. Didn’t shrug. Didn’t move. Only tracked him, quietly.

Dav watched him back, his gaze no longer indirect, moving elsewhere before returning for a second or two -- he was glaring headlong now, the bridge of his nose wrinkling childishly with resentment. The boy’s fists clenched in the pockets of his vest.

“Why am I _here_?” The words were spat out from behind biting teeth; he almost bared them, tucking his lips back over them at the last second. “Why’d you hire me? I’m not even doing anything. I coulda done nothing back in Karnaca.”

He looked strung tight as a wire, a wound-up spring ready to snap -- the stiffness of his shoulders and the fine shaking in his arms weren’t just because of the cold. Corvo carefully watched the boy’s face, belatedly noticing the bags under his eyes. He mustn’t have been sleeping well.

“I need you here for now,” Corvo said.

Dav stilled, quietly, like when Corvo would bend time and the color and detail bleached out of the world -- but he felt no drain on his strength, and in a moment Dav had straightened, blank-faced, his eyes focused somewhere over Coldridge.

“Yeah. Okay, boss.”

Corvo frowned. “It’s sir.”

“Sorry.” Something like life returned to Dav’s face, a frown curling comfortably on his brow where it belonged. “... Sir.” He looked confused again, and a little tired, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. The bright scarf no longer hid most of his face. His cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut skin.

“Have you eaten?” Corvo asked, working on impulse, and beckoned Dav to follow when he shook his head no. “I’ll find you something.”

The boy followed, uncharacteristically silent. (The silence itself wasn’t unusual -- but the way he kept to it, only wandering after him, still looking lost in his head, that was strange.)

The dining table wouldn’t be set up yet by this time, so Corvo headed straight for the kitchens, greeting the servants with a nod. They gave Dav curious glances; he looked like a servant as well, though threadbare for one employed in Dunwall Tower, and too eye-catching with his colored scarf. The boy’s shoulders crawled up to his ears a little more at every one they passed.

Corvo pushed himself to sit on the end of a counter, out of the way but within arm’s reach of a loaf of bread and a plate of fruit from all over the Isles. Dav tucked himself up in the corner, eyes narrow, trying to follow everyone’s movements -- Corvo distracted him with a slice of bread waved in his face.

“Eat it,” he said, biting into a pear. He grimaced. It tasted like it should be ripe -- light and sweet, nothing near sour, though slightly astringent -- but the fruit cracked under his teeth like an apple. New breed, maybe. The head of the kitchens had been trying out the variations they could find at the District market.

Dav wolfed down the bread then, eying the fruit hungrily, sneaked a handful of grapes from the bowl while he thought Corvo wasn’t looking and stuffed it deep as it could go in his pocket. He plucked some from the bunch and popped them in his mouth. He frowned.

“These are Serkonan,” Dav muttered, chewing with a serious look of concentration on his face, and bit open two more grapes like he was testing a hypothesis. “How did you get them all the way to Gristol before they rotted?”

Corvo paused with his own slice of bread halfway to his mouth and shrugged. “I haven’t looked into it. Fast ships?”

Dav, looking ponderous, stuffed an entire handful of grapes in his mouth.

This corner of the kitchen was a familiar one to Corvo, who had retreated to it often on nights where he couldn’t find sleep; he bent over to slide open the cabinet under the counter, drawing out a bottle of Old Dunwall, and reached for a stray glass left sitting further down the counter, then poured himself a measure. When he looked back to the boy, Dav was staring at the neat rows of bottles in the alcohol cabinet -- one in particular: the label pale yellow and the name written in a curving flourish, _Padilla Pear Soda._ Corvo brought out that bottle as well.

“You want some?” he asked.

Dav squinted at him suspiciously. “No.” Then, baring his teeth and looking away, exasperated with himself -- “Yes.” Corvo looked for another glass, thanked the kitchen girl who handed him one, and filled it halfway with the bubbling drink before handing it to Dav, who sipped it cautiously. He paused. Took another sip.

“It’s cold,” he said, low, almost surprised. Corvo didn’t answer. He barely touched his whiskey before going back upstairs to meet up with Emily at the dining (now breakfast) table.

“Where’s Dav?” she asked, picking up a whole saucer of honey instead of the spoon to drip great gobs of it on her bread. “He wasn’t in his room this morning.”

“Discovering the kitchens,” Corvo said as he sat next to her. He only poured himself tea: strong, sweetened with pear jelly. The bread and fruit had been enough.

“I want to show him the basement,” Emily explained. “Do you think he’ll find it interesting if I tell him about Mister Sullivan?”

Corvo paused, thinking of the way Dav had of watching him, sometimes, uncurious and on edge, eyes on Corvo’s hands especially. He swallowed his mouthful of tea.

“Maybe keep that for later,” he advised.

**Author's Note:**

> hey there, welcome to one of my first attempts at a regularly updating fic! there may be issues concerning that regularity though, so don't be surprised if updates drop off suddenly and without warning
> 
> this story _does_ have a beta and they're GREAT and also their name is [puppyblue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/puppyblue/pseuds/puppyblue)!!! praise (sorry i'm just really excited)
> 
> in any case, hope you enjoyed! i'll be posting i think on a weekly basis to avoid stressing myself out too much. adios, and until next time ~
> 
> [title is from Shakespeare's Sonnet 19.]


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